Scan barcode
A review by cupofbooksreviews
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
I have given The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson two out of five stars ⭐️⭐️
A dark and devious book filled with architecture and killings. A mixture of two I never thought I would read in the same book.
This book started off quite strong for me; learning about an architect called Daniel H. Burnham and a serial killer called H.H. Holmes. I find non-fiction books fascinating especially when based around true crime events, although that meant that there were a lot of brutal attacks that happened to a lot of people.
I found this book started to repeat itself quite a lot, especially during the chapters that surround Daniel Burnham and the architecture of the Chicago World Fair. I appreciated that the information was important and relevant however, due to the repeated information I started to become quite bored of Daniel Burnham’s story.
As I became less intrigued by this book, I ended up reading this book for a fair few weeks which dragged out the experience. I had hoped there was more information regarding H.H. Holmes rather than Daniel Burnham.
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Abortion, Murder, and Alcohol